README.md · helix · git.iko.soy

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helix/README.md

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1# Helix

4[![Build status](https://github.com/helix-editor/helix/actions/workflows/build.yml/badge.svg)](https://github.com/helix-editor/helix/actions)

6![Screenshot](./screenshot.png)

8A kakoune / neovim inspired editor, written in Rust.

10The editing model is very heavily based on kakoune; during development I found

11myself agreeing with most of kakoune's design decisions.

13For more information, see the [website](https://helix-editor.com) or

14[documentation](https://docs.helix-editor.com/).

16All shortcuts/keymaps can be found [in the documentation on the website](https://docs.helix-editor.com/keymap.html)

18# Features

20- Vim-like modal editing

21- Multiple selections

22- Built-in language server support

23- Smart, incremental syntax highlighting and code editing via tree-sitter

25It's a terminal-based editor first, but I'd like to explore a custom renderer

26(similar to emacs) in wgpu or skulpin.

28# Installation

30Note: Only certain languages have indentation definitions at the moment. Check

31`runtime/<lang>/` for `indents.toml`.

33We provide packaging for various distributions, but here's a quick method to

34build from source.

36```

37git clone --recurse-submodules --shallow-submodules -j8 https://github.com/helix-editor/helix

38cd helix

39cargo install --path helix-term

40```

42This will install the `hx` binary to `$HOME/.cargo/bin`.

44Helix also needs it's runtime files so make sure to copy/symlink the `runtime/` directory into the

45config directory (for example `~/.config/helix/runtime` on Linux/macOS). This location can be overriden

46via the `HELIX_RUNTIME` environment variable.

48Packages already solve this for you by wrapping the `hx` binary with a wrapper

49that sets the variable to the install dir.

51> NOTE: running via cargo also doesn't require setting explicit `HELIX_RUNTIME` path, it will automatically

52> detect the `runtime` directory in the project root.

54Alternatively, if you want to embed the `runtime/` directory into the Helix binary you can build

55it with:

57```

58cargo install --path helix-term --features "embed_runtime"

59```

61[![Packaging status](https://repology.org/badge/vertical-allrepos/helix.svg)](https://repology.org/project/helix/versions)

63## MacOS

64Helix can be installed on MacOS through homebrew via:

66```

67brew tap helix-editor/helix

68brew install helix

69```

71# Contributing

73Contributors are very welcome! **No contribution is too small and all contributions are valued.**

75Some suggestions to get started:

77- You can look at the [good first issue](https://github.com/helix-editor/helix/labels/E-easy) label on the issue tracker.

78- Help with packaging on various distributions needed!

79- To use print debugging to the `~/.cache/helix/helix.log` file, you must:

80 * Print using `log::info!`, `warn!`, or `error!`. (`log::info!("helix!")`)

81 * Pass the appropriate verbosity level option for the desired log level. (`hx -v <file>` for info, more `v`s for higher severity inclusive)

82- If your preferred language is missing, integrating a tree-sitter grammar for

83 it and defining syntax highlight queries for it is straight forward and

84 doesn't require much knowledge of the internals.

86We provide an [architecture.md](./docs/architecture.md) that should give you

87a good overview of the internals.

89# Getting help

91Discuss the project on the community [Matrix Space](https://matrix.to/#/#helix-community:matrix.org) (make sure to join `#helix-editor:matrix.org` if you're on a client that doesn't support Matrix Spaces yet).